


Families of Choice

by AngeNoir



Series: Inktober 2017 [14]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Gen, Mind Control, Omnic Crisis, god program
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-20 14:42:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12434952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/pseuds/AngeNoir
Summary: It's the end of the world, and Sombra wishes she could be cold-hearted.Too bad the only cold-hearted one of the three of them is Amelie, and she wasn't the one to open the door.Inktober Drabble 14 = Universe: Overwatch / List: Post-Apocalypse Wanderers / Prompt: The Warrior-Girl





	Families of Choice

**Author's Note:**

> Written for inktober, based on the prompt "The Warrior-Girl" from a Post-Apocalyptic Wanderers list. (You can see [and prompt me!] my initial post about my inktober writings [here](http://outercorner.tumblr.com/post/165938959460/so-i-am-gonna-be-trying-this-inktober-thing-but).)

Now, it wasn’t that Sombra hated omnics, not really. She just... hated how easy they were to get into, control,  _turn_.

The world had gone to hell in a handbasket, and she couldn’t even be mad at it, because she had  _facilitated_  this hellscape. She, and Reyes, and Amelie. They had - well, she and  _Reyes_  had - infiltrated Talon, had used the organization to gather info and further their agendas. If they managed to break Amelie’s conditioning, well, that was just bonus.

Then Akande broke free, and joined them, and everything spiraled further out of control.

See, Talon - and Akande - had always wanted to create irreconcilable war between the omnics and humankind, and while that wasn’t Sombra or Reyes’s goal, it was certainly easy enough to go along with until they reached their goal. But somehow, without either Reyes’s and her knowledge, Akande had gotten ahold of a God Program, and initiated it.

A  _learning_  God Program.

One that first, before anything else, copied itself, over and over. Sunk itself into different weapon factories, different omnic assembly factories, different  _defense department systems_ , until suddenly it burst forth, building units, taking over the omnics it could infect, laying waste to cities and towns, crops and water sources.

And so.

And so here they were, she and Reyes and Amelie. Well - not just them. They had been moving around, trying to keep off the radar of the omnics around them as well as the anarchist group Talon had turned into underneath Akande’s leadership, when they had been surprised in their hidey-hole by a man in a cowboy hat.

Jesse McCree.

Sombra knew him - even knew him simply because she had grown up with stories about him. She had slipped herself into many different groups, and almost all of them knew of the archetype of a cowboy that was a stunning sharpshooter, that cut down crime at every turn. But she knew him more than just that, than just the stories she had been told about this man. No, she knew him because of Reyes, her mentor. Reyes had taken her under his wing, had kept her safe from some of Talon’s more radical elements...

(What? She never told Reyes that, and she wasn’t ever going to - he had a swelled enough ego as it was. No, Reyes helped her, she admitted, but she also knew that if she had to have gone it alone, she could have. She just never shunned advantages when she had them.)

And Reyes would often remark about how whip-smart McCree had been. “Woulda been a good asset, chica,” he’d said more than once, drunk and practically formless. “But he was too smart for me. Got outta all of it, stayed safe. Can’t blame him. Outta alla the ‘Watch groups, he survived the best.”

But they had been smoked out of their hiding spot by tough, rangy McCree, looking desperately as if he didn’t want to look desperate. Beside him stood the wayward Shimada heir, bow slung along his back, head hanging, hair limp against his forehead, McCree torn up like hell.

And, had it been Amelie who opened that door, or even Sombra (she’d like to think so, like to think she wouldn’t have been sympathetic to their plight), they would have been turned away. As it was, it had been Reyes who had started to ghost out the door, and then hovered, body vibrating, staring at McCree who had his fist raised to knock.

(She knew that Reyes saw McCree and the younger Shimada as surrogate sons, just as she was like a surrogate daughter to Reyes. Did that make her sister to McCree and Shimada? She wasn’t sure, but she hadn’t brought it up because she was focused on keeping her head down.)

It turned out that they had needed help. They had strayed too close to an omnic group point, and their other companion - the younger Shimada, the dead-Shimada-turned-living - had been dragged under the God program’s control.

“Please,” the elder Shimada - Hanzo, a feared assassin in his own right - begged,  _pleaded_  with them. “He is all we have left.”

And Sombra had known that would drag Reyes into it.

So here she was, standing outside a factory, cursing herself for not seeing where her plans would lead, for Reyes too hurt and blind to be anything but fallible, and Amelie for not hitting the two of them upside the head.

If she was found - which was highly possible for the God program, if it decided to - she would be killed. Or worse. She didn’t make it public knowledge, but Sombra was part omnic, just like the younger Shimada, and if  _he_  could be controlled...

Slight movement, and bright light bounced oddly for one moment. Reyes was in position, along with McCree. Shimada and Amelie were less likely to check in, but then again, if she couldn’t trust her spider in the web, she was dead anyway.

She had to trust that Amelie could bring her body home at the least, and bring it back  _safely_  at the best.

Licking her lips, she rubbed her cracked and peeling fingernails against her sternum. She was a warrior, a fighter, and she never quit. She’d survive, on her own or not, but she’d  _survive_ , and she’d get to where she needed to be.

Reaffirming her belief (ignoring the fragility of it, of herself), she took a deep breath and undid a zipper pocket, revealing a small capsule.

_(”You see, chica, Jesse risks himself every time he becomes Deadlock’s weapon. Mierda, but the amount of times he pulled that cheesy fucking deadshot... I was never happier for him than when he left and no longer had access to Amari’s potions.”)_

Steeling herself - she knew this was going to hurt, even if it was necessary, and she wasn’t looking forward to the fallout - she put the capsule in her teeth and bit down.

Instantaneously, extra energy and strength flooded her, and she ghosted away into code, cloaking herself with the best finesse and skill she could manage. Hunching down, she  _ran_.

When she was nothing but code, everything was blurred, almost faded, and she zipped faster than human thought, jumping through the different electrical pathways that lined the walls of wherever she was. The God Program was here, but she had to hope it would not notice the slight disturbance of her passing, the unknown electrical signal just brushing against the other jumble of signals she could feel as she sped down the hallway. The capsule would give her an extra ten seconds of ghost time, and she had to hope she could put that to good use.

Recon, she reminded herself, darting past monstrous machines designed to do nothing but mow down human flesh. Recon, and she dashed down into a corridor to see cages, dog cages, lining the walls, humans hunched down in them. Recon, and she turned down another path, saw humanoid omnics standing docile like mannequins in rows upon rows upon rows.  _Recon_ , she hissed to herself as she desperately clawed for more speed, trying to get out of the building before her ghosting failed her. Fumbling at her belt, she gripped the teleportation device. If she threw it through the window, she would make it outside, be that much farther and away from the God Program, from the possibility of the God Program taking over  _her_  mind - but it would alert the Program, would let it know that people were here, and she was biting her tongue hard enough to bleed, tasting copper and metal in her mouth as the capsule wore off, blood trickling out of her nose, and with a gasp she darted out of the building and slumped against the ground, limbs trembling, lungs working desperately for air.

The light of a scope trailed over Sombra’s chest, and if it weren’t for the need for secrecy, Sombra would have sobbed in relief. Amelie was watching. Amelie was there to take care.

A soft whisper of noise, and then the elder Shimada - Hanzo, though she didn’t want to humanize him, not really, she didn’t want to have to worry about him and care for him - dropped down next to her.

“We must move,” he whispered, voice barely louder than the rumble of machinery that hummed in the distance. “We cannot stay here.”

She could not get up, and she would have been more embarrassed about that if she could summon up the strength. As it was, she shook her head, knowing her knees would buckle if she even tried to stand.

With a short nod, he scooped her up piggy-back style. She was more than a little surprised, nearly let out a choked cry in her shock, and then he was scaling the building nimbly, silently.

She clutched tight, burying her face against the back of his gi, and it wasn’t until familiar gloved and clawed fingers hooked around her arms that she lifted her head blearily.

“You’re bleeding onto Shimada’s clothes,” Reyes said, raspy voice sounding disapproving. She could tell that McCree - who had hung back with Reyes while she did recon with her sniper back-ups - was upset at what appeared to be Reyes’ callousness; he opened his mouth, face twisted in a snarl.

But she, she could hear the desperate worry, the fear, in Reyes’ tone, and so she pulled off a smirk. “Figured the prissy bitch could use a bit of mussing,” she said, trying and failing to hit her trademark purr; instead, her voice came out crackly and broken.

“Next time, your sloppiness stays here and I will complete the job properly,” Reyes snarled, and his fingers clenched around her, a small tremble in his hands letting her know just how badly she had scared him.

She patted the edge of his mask, her smug smile more natural now. “Relax,  _jefe_ , we got it figured. There are human prisoners - I am not sure why - and omnic prisoners. Humans are locked in dog cages, or some kinda animal cages; this used to be a meat processing plant, I think, or the omnics actually built those cages. Dunno which one is worse. The omnics are all deactivated, or at least motionless, lined up. Easy enough to grab, but first you have to get through the factory’s purpose. War machines.”

Reyes stilled - Gabriel stilled - and the man she had thought of as her big brother, or a particularly young and emo uncle, vibrated. “History repeats itself,” he said softly, so soft she was sure McCree had not heard - though Shimada had. He tilted his head at Shimada and said gruffly, “I suppose it’s too much to ask if your dragon can wipe out those machines but leave the humans and omnics untouched?”

Shimada looked shocked to be asked.

The talk turned towards planning, to figuring out how to snatch and grab and escape with their lives intact, but Gabriel found the time to lower his face to Sombra’s, edge his mask up a little so she could see the rapidly shifting and decaying flesh of his cheek and jawbone. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

“Anything for your brilliant strategist and dragon, right?” she said, shrugging a shoulder in a casual, artful manner.

Those clawed gloves tightened around her bicep, pricking her skin. “ _No_ ,” Gabriel ground out. “Do not sacrifice one of my assets for another. You are our best asset and if I had to sacrifice everyone here for you to survive, myself included, I would.”

Startled, she leaned back, wide-eyed.

“You are fierce,  _chica_ ,” Gabriel murmured, and then he rejoined the conversation to critique the plan McCree had proposed.

Everyone else - from Akande, to Amelie, to the Soldier, to the giant - everyone Sombra had ever met had lamented the loss of Gabriel, the creation of Reaper, the soulless and heartless killer.

But Gabriel never died, not for her, and she would fight to the death to protect her family, no matter how odd and broken it might be.


End file.
